Hey folks, I know its been a while.  My gracious sempai Mike Hagedorn was nice enough to do a post about my recent work here at the nursery of Shinji Suzuki, and because of that act of kindness I gained a few new friends here at Reelbonsai.  Since I used up all of my good “before and afters” of Juniper on Mike’s blog (Crataegus.com) I had to get creative.  Today was a scorcher, mid 90’s with too much humidity, so in between watering and other daily apprentice tasks, I was asked to re-adjust a white pine that I had wired a year before.  My teacher bought it from a client, it had grown leggy and out of proportion.  Although I don’t have a before pic, here is what this old guy looked like after my first wiring on it.

After the first styling last winter, not bad for the first…

Watching these Kathy Shaner demos provides a good reminder to work on rough stock to prepare it for styling later. 40 minutes well-spent:


It motivated me to take another look at this shimpaku stock that’s been allowed to grow mostly unchecked for the last couple years waiting for just the right opportunity. It has several good alternatives, and I’m not ready to exclude any of them yet…but several branches are unnecessary from any perspective. Best to get them out of the way now, and push that growth back closer to the trunk, and let it “puff up” again, as Kathy put it.
Several potential fronts:

Before:

Reduce branches fom 3 to 2:

Continuing this throughout the tree leaves all the design options on the table, spreads out the branch reduction over time, allows more light into the tree, and improves density in close to the trunk/main branches. Not much difference…

I often hear people saying they wish they had access to good stock and or that they cant find any stock worth purchasing. Often the journey to find good stock can be difficult but there is definitely good stock available if you know where to look.

A couple of weekends ago I visited a friend on the outskirts of Melbourne to see how his ground grown stock had progressed this year.

As you can see from the above picture, the stock was going very well indeed. There is no real secret about how to produce these results as they are a simple a matter of spending 10 years applying good technique and working the root bases each and every year.

Each year the trees have been dug up and cut back hard to encourage a fine, flat root system. Digging each year coupled with the excellent growing conditions in the…

Just recently I was assigned this Tosho/needle juniper to trim and clean up.

This tree was originally bought by Oyakata’s grandfather and had very little foliage or branches. Oyakata said his grandfather bought it, his father grew it on and he styled it. So three generations in the making. Last year the tree became weak, most probably because the soil became too compact and the tree couldn’t get enough water. So the tree was re-potted this year to help regain vigor. If I could give one tip for keeping needle junipers it would be don’t treat them like a shimpaku. They love to be kept moist so, if you have a reasonably well-drained mix, keep on top of the watering. They are also weaker than other junipers and care needs to be taken in not overworking.
Needle juniper’s have a reputation of being pretty prickly but, on the pain scale…

Just an update on whats happening with the new club for Munster. We have the date set for Friday the 20th of September. The meetings will take place in Cork as that is the area with the most people interested so far. This could alternate in the future. The venue is still to be confirmed, but will be confirmed in the next two weeks. I have a list of people interested so far and myself and Piotr will be in contact over the next two weeks. If you are interested and would like to join or have a friend or family member which you think would be interested don’t hesitate to contact us. Below is a flyer which Piotr made while on holidays, dedication or what 🙂 These will be seen around Cork and surrounding areas. Anyway all the details are below to get in contact or you can contact…

I’ve been half heartedly looking for a yellow pot to eventually use with my Chinese quince. Yellow pots are tricky, like green, they don’t photograph predictably true. They’re not very common, and new ones, with a few exceptions, look pretty loud until some patina develops and quiets them down a little.

This one has cloud feet, and is a well-aged yellow, 40-60 years of age. it is 29.3 cm × 23.7 cm × 7.9 cm. Since the glaze is applied to the sign and seal, it was not identified. Our Japanese Bonsai Pots friend took a look at it when he visited a few months ago and helped shed some more light on it. From what he could see, it is either Chinese, “Shu Hozan”, or Japanese by Amane Hiroshi.

Recently I saw this blue one for sale, and was struck by how closely the shape, size, and clay body…